


In the True Spirit of the Holiday

by Akhaste (Sairamire)



Category: True Detective
Genre: Christmas fic, Coping, Fluff??? I think??????, M/M, Post-Finale, Recovery, They're doing their best to deal with it, Unexpected Emotions in midst of Banter, cheesy af, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 10:43:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17160539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sairamire/pseuds/Akhaste
Summary: "You dressed up as Santa?"





	In the True Spirit of the Holiday

_“You dressed up as Santa?”_

Marty stared at Rust in disbelief, ready to laugh but too shocked to actually let it out. Rust gave him an unimpressed look.

They had been fighting over whether they should put up the decoration for Christmas. Marty had suggested it, expecting Rust to detest. It was more of a tease, really. He mentioned some lighting in the bushes and the roof, maybe even a full-on Christmas tree, and savored Rust’s growing annoyance at their mention. The suggestion was more or less genuine, though. Marty had been in more of a festive mood lately, perhaps quite ironically, in the company of Rust, the most anti-festive man Marty could think of. Of course, Marty’s initial expectation had been fulfilled—Rust reacted like the very thought of Christmas itself was revolting, and there wasn’t any surprise there.

What was unexpected was the revelation that followed Marty’s half-playful, half-honest accusation that Rust hadn’t celebrated Christmas once in his life. Rustin fucking Cohle, who had once referred to Christmas as the most useless and delusive societal scheme, had dressed up as Santa.

“ _You_ ,” Marty repeated while pointing at Rust, who sat on the couch with a book open in front of him, as if he was trying to put two impossible mathematical equations together, “as Santa.”

To his credit, Marty did his best to picture Rust as Santa, but all that he could conjure were comically depressing images of disheveled, worn, and chain-smoking Santa who looked like he was more ready to stab someone than to give gifts.

“You just gonna keep on repeating that?” Rust asked, clearly annoyed and regretting ever mentioning it at all.

Marty let go of the idea that Rust was possibly fucking with him. “I thought you didn’t believe in any of that.”

“Putting on a Santa costume isn’t exactly the most compelling proof of his existence,” Rust deadpanned, “Or do you mean to tell me you ain’t done believing in Santa?”

“No, I mean, as in the idea of participating in Christmas at all, let alone dressing up as Santa. You're the one who said _Christmas is all about keeping the illusory bullshit with make-believes made to sell merchandise_.”

Rust shrugged. “Well, you gotta make some compromises when you’ve got a kid. Didn’t do it for long, anyway.” He paused at the unwelcome reminder as the realization dawned on Marty. “Three times, never before or...after.”

The silence that settled between them was full of unspoken memories and thoughts, some fond and some more painful.

On Sophia’s first Christmas, Claire insisted on the costume. He told her that Sophia was too young to remember anything anyway, but she said _I know you don’t like all this shit, but it’s her first goddamn Christmas_ , and that was a good enough argument. His own strange pops, who could not give any less shits about anything related to collective celebrations, made things out of wood he’d very incorrectly estimated someone of Rust’s age would need, wrapped them up with red paper and green ribbons, and wrote “From Santa” in scrawny letters that were very clearly his before leaving them by his door. He grew up never understanding why his father ever tried that to begin with; he understood then. So he took the red velvet costume from Claire without a word of complaint afterwards. He put on the fat belly, the white wig and beard too. He hated it, but the awe on Sophia’s face and her sparkling laughter made all of that dissipate. From then on, though he never wore costumes for Halloween, he always did Santa for Christmas. The Santa voice took some time for him to get and earned a lot of suppressed laughs from Claire. By the third Christmas, though, he’d gotten quite good at it.

It was Sophia’s last Christmas and effectively Rust’s.

The gentle touch of Marty’s hand on his shoulder woke him from his memories. Marty didn’t ask anything of it, for which Rust was thankful. He conveyed his silent thank you by squeezing on Marty’s hand.  

Rust cleared his throat, pushing down on the surge of emotions on his throat. “Claire recorded them,” he croaked, “Some polaroid pictures, videos on the camcorder.”

“You still have them?” Marty asked, soft and careful, unsure of how to proceed.

“I do. The pictures are in one of the boxes. Claire sent me the videos a while back, too. Haven’t looked at them, though.”

Marty understood that “haven’t” meant “couldn’t”, and that Rust wasn’t ready to talk about it just yet. Wanting to respect that boundary but lacking the skills to swerve the conversation seamlessly onto something else, he gave the distraction as he best could.

“Did I ever tell you how I found out Santa wasn’t real?” Marty began, in a tone that was almost an octave higher, “I was nine. You see, I was real excited for Christmas because I was so sure I’d been a good kid. I was convinced I was gonna get all I asked for. I wanted Lite-Brite, and I even put on the largest socks I could find so that it would fit. Helped my mom bake the cookies to put out for Santa and all that. But things turned south real quick. When midnight came, a piece of the goddamn cookie got caught in my dad’s throat, caused a coughing fit, woke me up. I peek through my door, and there he is, the skinniest, baldest, most clean-shaven Santa I’ve ever seen, coughing his lungs out on the sofa! I was so devastated, I just started crying right there.”

That got a smile out of Rust, to Marty’s relief.

“You know, don’t worry about the Christmas decorations. I wasn’t being all that serious.” Marty added casually, “It’s too much work anyway.”

Rust considered him for a moment, his eyes growing soft. “I can help with the lights, if you want. I’d be better at that stuff than you. Maybe put up a small tree, even.”

“You sure?” 

"Yeah."

### ❄❄❄

Over the course of the three weeks they had before Christmas, they didn’t actively make time for decorations but got to it whenever they had some time to spare. They shopped for some of them, like the lights and the small tree, but Rust preferred making things on his own. Sometimes he picked up pine cones to hang on the tree and made ornaments out of empty beer cans that he morphed into stars and painted either green or gold. He even worked with wood, too, carving small figures out of them. Marty watched him work and saw that there was a lot of remembrance in his hands.

By the eve of Christmas, they had finished.  As midnight approached, they turned off the light inside and went outside to look at their work. The golden lights dangled about the roof, green and red wrapped around the bushes. The wreath hung at the door was finished with red ribbons and adorned with small wooden stars and bells painted gold and silver, which reflected the light from above. They weren’t much, but it wasn’t about how they looked; it was about what they meant. Marty and Rust admired it for a while before heading inside. There, their hands joined, they sat in the soft light of the small Christmas tree.

“Merry Christmas,” Rust said to Marty, and he meant it.

The pain was still there. Rust knew it would never really disappear. But in Marty’s warm presence, there was more fondness, of his pop’s gifts, of Sophia’s laughter. The pictures were still in the box, Claire’s emails unopened, but he knew that he’d bring himself to look at them with Marty one day—that these memories will be of the precious love they hold than their pain. It was an assurance that it’d be better, which, as Rust came to embrace, was the true spirit of the holiday.


End file.
